


[Fandom stats] How much Supernatural activity have we seen since Nov 5?

by toastystats (destinationtoast)



Series: Fandom Stats [100]
Category: Fandom - Fandom, Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s15e18 Despair, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27571780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinationtoast/pseuds/toastystats
Summary: A quick analysis of the first eight days in the SPN fandom after s15e18 Despair aired.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Fandom Stats [100]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/60910
Comments: 11
Kudos: 97





	[Fandom stats] How much Supernatural activity have we seen since Nov 5?

**Author's Note:**

> Originally [posted to Tumblr](https://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/post/634807254976184320/how-much-supernatural-activity-have-we-seen-since) on Nov 14, 2020. Written more informally than most of my AO3 work as a result, but I wanted to archive it here anyway. :)

Did you see that [Tumblr] post going around about having to scroll through >54 pages on AO3 to get to any SPN fanworks created before Nov 5? Me too -- and being me, I had to fact check that and compare it to some other fandoms! 🤣📊

By the time I did some quick analysis yesterday (8 days after Cas declared his love for Dean and was immediately eaten by superhell goo*) the number had grown to **> 1.5K AO3 fanworks produced since Nov 5 (75 pages on AO3).**

That's a lot! However, the Supernatural fandom is incredibly prolific -- it has produced more than **234K fanworks** on AO3 over the years. And as my [recent 2020 stats](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fworks%2F27315784&t=ZGNkNDE0NWVlMzBmMDVkOWRlM2ZhMDc1N2ZmOTlkNTdiYWY5NTg1NCxmNTU0MDJiMmM5YTUzODZkMjk4ODQ1MzYyYjg1ZTE3MDRmYTAyNDc1&ts=1605396972) revealed, it's still one of the most active fandoms on the archive. So how much have things changed since Nov 5?

First I compared recent SPN fandom activity to earlier SPN fanwork production -- both earlier during S15 and before the season started**:

  * **Daily average since Nov 5: 193 works/day (more than 2x earlier this season; more than 3x pre-season)**
  * Beginning of season 15 through Nov 5: 87 works/day 
  * Leading up to new season: 57 works/day



I also compared Supernatural to other big fandoms on AO3 over the past 8 days:

  * In the weeks before Nov 5, Supernatural was producing roughly the same # of works per day as **Batman** (all media types). Since Nov 5, it's been close to the rate of production for **the whole DCU fandom!**
  * SPN is currently more active than **Untamed/MDZS**
  * But it's not the most active fandom! For instance, SPN is still producing somewhat fewer fanworks than **BTS.** And some of the most active fandoms of all, **BNHA** and **Harry Potter,** have each produced over TWICE as many fanworks as SPN since Nov 5! (There are a few other larger fandoms, too -- see my [2020 stats](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fworks%2F27315784&t=NWI0YWI5NmU5Njk4NmM2YTM3OWJhMWFhMDA4ZTg3ZGQxMjgzYThlMCxmNTU0MDJiMmM5YTUzODZkMjk4ODQ1MzYyYjg1ZTE3MDRmYTAyNDc1&ts=1605397634), released right before Nov 5, to get a more complete picture.)



So how has the content of AO3 fanworks changed since Castiel's confession and death? Based only on the top tags used, here's what I see:

  * **A big jump in Destiel** \-- 38% of the fandom's works used the [Castiel/Dean Winchester](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Ftags%2FCastiel%2As%2ADean%2520Winchester%2Fworks&t=ZTU0NzFjOWI2ZTBmNTkxNmQyY2Y2ODA2MTRkODU3Y2NlZDY5NWJlMSw2NDc5MDI4YWEzOWI4ODU4NjVkYTgwMzA1NTgxYmMwYWU5MzM3YjNi&ts=1605401763) relationship tag before Nov 5, and **60%** have since Nov 5
  * **> 20% tagged specifically as being about the Nov 5** episode -- [Episode: s15e18 Despair](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fworks%3Futf8%3D%25E2%259C%2593%26commit%3DSort%2Band%2BFilter%26work_search%255Bsort_column%255D%3Drevised_at%26include_work_search%255Bfreeform_ids%255D%255B%255D%3D2376%26work_search%255Bother_tag_names%255D%3D%26work_search%255Bexcluded_tag_names%255D%3D%26work_search%255Bcrossover%255D%3D%26work_search%255Bcomplete%255D%3D%26work_search%255Bwords_from%255D%3D%26work_search%255Bwords_to%255D%3D%26work_search%255Bdate_from%255D%3D%26work_search%255Bdate_to%255D%3D%26work_search%255Bquery%255D%3D%26work_search%255Blanguage_id%255D%3D%26tag_id%3DEpisode%253A%2Bs15e18%2BDespair&t=NmEyZWNmYzBhYzhkYWI2MTgxNDFiZjNhMjFlNTY5ZTJlYTJmYjMxNCwzNDM4YzlkYmFiMDhkNWExZGRjYTZhMDM5YmQwNTNlM2Y3M2FhYmY3&ts=1605401763) (though probably many more works address the episode but don’t use that tag)
  * **Fix-It** and **Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence** each surged to be used on >5% of the works (an increase for Canon Divergence up from 3.4%, and a bigger increase for Fix-It). **Coda** was used on 8%; I don’t know if Coda works mostly tend to be canon compliant, but I do see the Fix-It tag also used on a bunch of these works.
  * **Angst** up from 12% to 22%; **Angst With A Happy Ending** increased to >7%



I'm super curious whether this activity is mostly due to new/existing SPN authors, or whether lots of long-dormant authors returning to the fandom to react to this event. But I don't have data about authors. If anyone else has done analysis about that or anything else related, I'd love to hear about it!

Thanks to [@fansplaining](https://tmblr.co/mvO0bxM7-IiZckl6jN5zB4A) for several comments and questions that shaped this analysis. 💜💜 And IIRC, [@elizabethminkel](https://tmblr.co/mKxeq3gVUbkMajO-OqrduCw) coined the pun I used in the title! 😹

___

*Note: I have not watched Supernatural, so everything I (think I) know about the show, I learned from Tumblr. Hope this is approximately correct?? ;P

**Note that different days of the week have different activity levels on AO3 -- e.g weekends are very productive -- so the post-Nov 5 numbers are likely to vary a lot based on which exact set of days you average over. 

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe this is my 100th work in the Fandom Stats series!! When I started looking at this stuff, I had no idea that anyone else would be fascinated by this kind of data -- but I'm so glad y'all are. :D Thanks so much to everyone who has read along and/or reached out with kind & thoughtful comments... much love to you all. <33333


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